End of teather with DS 4

[LightUpLavender]

Absolutely lost it in the car with DS4 today. We were going to the shops and he was booting off, wanting to go home, the traffic lights were the wrong colours, I was turning the steering wheel the wrong way, wrong song etc. I was trying to ignore because it was all so irrational. He kept escalating, getting louder, kicking chair, trying to get my attention. I was still ignoring m. Then he tried to hit his baby sister, the only reason he couldn’t was because his seat means he couldn’t reach. And I pulled over and gave him a huge shouting at. Didn’t swear but really shouted at him angrily.

After we sat in the car quietly for a while. I think the shouting made an impact. He was quiet. I scared him I think. And I don’t feel good about it. At all. I apologised for shouting. Said that he can’t not try to hurt the baby. We hugged. I still feel shit.

Hes such hard work. He’s always on a knife edge in terms of behaviour. We are going through the EHCP process for him at the moment. His behaviour at nursery is not great either. He’s got specialist one to one now (which is helping) but disregulation, biting/hiting, tantrums with unclear triggers were a big problem. Still probably would be without support.

Hes a funny bright boy. He makes us laugh every day, he’s inventive, he do certain things at four that I couldnt do at 8 or 9. I love him. But most days I don’t know if I’m a good parent.

Im really tired. And just looking to vent really but any thoughts or advice appreciated.

Being a parent is extremely difficult and even more so where a child has additional needs or behavioural difficulties. Shouting at him to the point he was scared obviously wasn't ideal, but there has never been a parent in existence who never lost their rag or never made a mistake. No-one is an optimal parent all the time. You apologised and that's good.

Do you have very clear boundaries in place for him? With clear, immediate and related consequences that are applied consistently? If not, this will help.

It sounds like a clear pattern - he's after attention, escalates his attempts to get you to interact with him which you ignore, until he finally triggers you and you explode. Can you not head this off much earlier? So what if he thinks the traffic lights are the wrong colours or you're steering wrong - say you thought they were purple or you are a penguin and this is how penguins drive. If the typical pattern is that you ignore the irritating low level attempts to interact with you and then respond ferociously when he finally goes too far then that's what you need to work on.

I wouldn’t have apologised for shouting. I’d give him a stern talking to at home after the fact to really hammer it home.

However, going forward I would nip the behaviour in the bud quicker and not let it escalate. I wouldn’t be letting my 4 year old get past the first whinging and moaning, let alone escalating to kicking the back of my seat.

Well it worked didn't it 🤷‍♀️

Curious how you’d nip it in the bud quicker… Like what would you actually do in the moment? Turn car around drive home? Distract/diffuse?

A lot of what you mention is what is normally do. And 85% of the time that would work. Just didn’t have any reserve of patience in me today. Baby was up all night.

I did think this honestly… just don’t like being a shouty parent.

Many a good Irish mother shouting session was had in my house. Honestly I would not annoy yourself he was going to hurt his sister he got roared at and stopped. Far too much fluffing about with kids these days. My teens are not perfect but pretty decent and I rarely have to give out at all now.

I’d have parked up immediately and dealt with it. Quite honestly there’s a reason my 4 year old wouldn’t kick the back of my chair OP. You need to deal with things quicker and you need to show that you bloody well mean what you say. Letting it build and build and then exploding at him is completely out of control and showing him he can keep pushing and pushing and wind you up. If you fall into this as a habit he’ll become desensitised to future shouting and he’ll know you’re not in control so he’ll take the piss right out of you. It will become a fun game. Wind mum up and watch her explode.